


Pride Goeth

by HugeAlienPie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, motion practice universe, pride festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 13:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dot Barnes, age 6, <em>is</em> the rainbow. From the top of her hair-banded head to the tips of her sneakered toes, every inch of her is covered with rainbow clothes and jewelry. None of it matches. It's got to be driving Steve insane.</p><p>Set in the_wordbutler's Motion Practice Universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride Goeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_wordbutler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Admissions, Interrogatories, and Other Discoveries](https://archiveofourown.org/works/806216) by [the_wordbutler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler). 



> [the_wordbutler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler) was kind enough to let me poke around in her stupendous [Motion Practice Universe](http://archiveofourown.org/series/24545), and this is the result.

"Young lady," Tony says gravely as the newcomers duck into the tent, "did the parade run you over?"  
  
Dot Barnes, age 6, _is_ the rainbow. From the top of her hair-banded head to the tips of her sneakered toes, every inch of her is covered with rainbow clothes and jewelry. Rainbow stripes. Rainbow polka dots. Rainbow butterflies. And none of it matches. All the rainbows have slightly different saturation values; the dotted things have different sizes of dots; the striped things have different widths of stripes. It's got to be driving Steve insane.  
  
Bucky tries to look like a supportive parent who would never roll his eyes at his daughter's sartorial choices. "Dot has a lot of pride today," he says, ruffling her hair. _He_ , Clint notes, is wearing carefully neutral colors. Light, in deference to the ridiculous heat, his sole concession to the occasion a rainbow bracelet, clearly braided for him by Dot's own little hands.  
  
"And it all _means_ something," Steve adds. He's obviously torn between his love of Dot and his aesthetic integrity. He's wearing a red t-shirt, navy shorts with white pinstripes, and a bracelet that matches Bucky's. "Show them, sweetie."  
  
Instantly, Dot's hands are flying, pointing seemingly at random to the socks, necklaces, and superfluous sashes that make up her ensemble. "This is for my Daddy, and this is for my other Daddy, and this is for you, Uncle Tony, and this is for Uncle Bruce, and this is for Uncle Phil, and this is for Uncle Clint, and this is for Aunt Pepper, and this is for Aunt Natasha, and this is for Bridget's mommy, and this is for Bridget's other mommy, and this is for Mr. Millard who teaches me piano, and this is for Miles who isn't gay but has gay daddies so it's almost the same, and this is for a girlfriend I might have someday, and this is for Jarvis!"  
  
"Whoa, hey, since when is my cat gay?" Tony demands.  
  
With only the slightest hint of a smirk showing, Bucky replies, "Since she had one more barrette and no more gay people."  
  
Bruce glances at Clint. "What about--"  
  
Clint shakes his head. "The less we remind children of Wade's existence, and vice-versa, the safer the world is."  
  
"Well," Tony says, leaning down so his face is right next to Dot's, "that is an awful lot of pride, Missy."  
  
"She's got an awful lot of gay in her life," Phil notes. "Aren't you guys marching in the parade?"  
  
Steve nods and absently flares the brochures on the table in front of Phil, creating a not-half-bad fan shape. "Doesn't step off for at least ten minutes, and we're somewhere in the middle. We've got plenty of time.  
  
"Well, I tell you what," Tony tells Dot, leaning across Phil to rummage under their folding table for the well-hidden bags of ring pops House Banner-Stark-Morales picked up on the way and then decided they didn't want to share, "when you get to the parade, march with Clint's friend Wade. You'll make a good set."  
  
"Stark, what did I _just_ say?" Clint demands.  
  
"Oh, come off it, Barton." Tony waves his hands around, big, encompassing gestures that don't actually add anything but danger to the conversation. "It's a _holiday_. And Wade's..."  
  
"Weird," Phil offers, and no matter what Tony had actually been intending to say, he can't possibly deny the man's got a point.  
  
Wade. Who marked his sexual orientation on forms as "YOLO" for years before he started scaling Mt. Summers on a regular basis. Who owns more feather boas than all the drag queens of Suffolk County combined and keeps them in his front hall closet, "Because you never know when there might be a fabulousness emergency". He understands why Wade feels the need to be (in his own words) _super-extra-out_ this year. He just knows he'd've made a different call, in Wade's place.  
  
Truth be told, Clint isn't sure why he's here in his own place. He's not a member of Lambda Delta, which he'd thought was some nerd fraternity when he'd first heard Steve talking about it, but which turns out to be an association for LGBTQIA legal professionals in the five-county area. But (no surprise) Steve and Bucky _are_ members, as are (kind of a surprise) Natasha, Pepper, and (big, weird surprise) Phil, and Pride's a big deal to them. So when Pepper waved a clipboard in his face and demanded to know what shift he and Phil wanted for booth staffing, shouting, "We have the gayest office in the state. You can see our gay from space. I am _not_ letting Drake show us up again this year!"--Clint'd realized that saying "no" wasn't an option--especially after Tony said, "To be fair, you can see _their_ gay from most commercial aircraft," and Pepper _hit him in the head with the clipboard_.  
  
The thing is, though...Clint doesn't _get_ it. He's not ashamed of being gay. Everyone who knows him knows he's gay. Hell, everyone who _sees_ him with Phil knows, because he's no good at keeping his hands to himself. But it's just... _there_ , a thing about him, nothing he's done or accomplished with his life. Having a festival around it makes as little sense to him as that left-handers' festival whose pamphlets someone (who is probably Darcy) keeps leaving on his desk.  
  
After Tony convinces Dot to take his candy and her fathers wrangle her paradeward, a lull falls over the tent. Clint smiles at Phil. "Hey."  
  
Phil smiles back. "Hey, yourself. How's it going?"  
  
Clint shrugs and ducks his head. It's stupidly hot, and there's too damned many people, but he's under a tent, surrounded by his friends and their kids and their dogs (although, seriously, if Butterfingers' nose ends up in Clint's crotch one more time, he and Tony will have _words_ ) and thousands of perfectly lovely strangers. Pissing on the day because _he_ doesn't see the point of it seems mean-spirited.  
  
But Phil gets that, because Phil is a scary mind-reading boyfriend. He scoots his chair closer and slides his arm around Clint's back. "I hope the day's coming when this becomes unnecessary," he murmurs, gesturing at the throng beyond the tent's edge. "When it's such a nonissue that this becomes..." He looks around. "Quaintly anachronistic."  
  
Of course Tony hears. "'Quaintly anachronistic'? Talking about your sex life again, Coulson?" Flipping him off isn't worth the effort.  
  
For a minute, Clint leans into Phil and soaks up the quiet _fact_ of him. "Yeah," he says quietly as he sits upright again.  
  
Two young women in shorts and tank tops (but nothing rainbow, thank God; Clint's still recovering from his exposure to Dot) step into the tent. The one with spiky blue hair and four rings in each ear hangs back, trying to be supportive from a distance--a hard line to walk, as Clint knows from the couple times he's tried to do it for Phil and the countless times Phil's done it for him. The one with the perfectly neat brown ponytail pulled through her Florida Marlins baseball cap wanders up to the table, failing to look like she's not actively interested in what they're peddling, that she's only here because it happened to be next in line.  
  
Clint decides it wouldn't hurt to interact with the people who aren't them. "Hey."  
  
She looks up, startled, like she was hoping no one would notice her. "Uh. Hey." She looks around, pretending to take in for the first time who they are. "You're the gay lawyers?"  
  
"Some of us are the bi lawyers," Tony says, looking at her over the tops of his sunglasses. "And Spinster Coulson over there has known the touch of no lover but his knitting needles."  
  
Clint takes too long deciding between a comeback about Phil's lover touching Tony's ass with his boot and one about where he's gonna touch Tony with Phil's knitting needles and loses his window for either. It's cool how he and Phil flip Tony off in perfect unison, though. "Yeah," Clint says, "we're the gay lawyers."  
  
She nods. "Cool," she says. "And you don't...get shit for that?"  
  
"Well," Tony says, "our boss gives me grief about how much sex the Mister and I have in my office--"  
  
"Dude, we _all_ give you grief about how much sex you have in your office," Clint protests.  
  
"Not a word outta you, Barton," Tony snaps back, pointing at him. "Your brothel-pillow love nest doesn't mask sound nearly as well as you think."  
  
Hat's looking between them like she's not sure they're real. Clint sympathizes. "You work together?"  
  
" _We_ work together," Phil corrects, indicating himself, Clint, and Bruce. "Tony doesn't do work." Clint can't make out what Tony grumbles in response, but he bets it's hilarious. "You thinking about law?"  
  
Clint recognizes the noncommittal noise and gesture Hat makes. It says she's very much thinking about law but is embarrassed to say so. His stomach clenches briefly. He knows all about growing up in environments where your life's ambitions inspire mockery instead of encouragement.  
  
Clint catches the fond look Bruce gives both girls. Probably he's thinking about Miles (off with Ganke doing whatever two presumably straight teenage boys do when loosed on a gay pride festival) and what he'll be like when he grows out of his current awkward stage and into a _different_ awkward stage.  
  
"She's totally thinking about it," Blue Hair--who Clint feels justified in presuming is Hat's girlfriend--says from the other side of the tent.  
  
Hat blushes, and yeah, Clint recognizes that, too. He smiles at Phil, thinking about how sometimes it _still_ stuns him to have someone in his life believe in him unreservedly. "Dunno," Hat mumbles, more to the table than to Phil. "Haven't thought about it much. 'M only a freshman."  
  
"This is a great organization if you're thinking about it," Phil says, and Clint is floored to be seeing yet another side he didn't know Phil had. "We have a mentorship program, and people are usually willing to just talk about things you're worried about, or the pros and cons of being an out attorney. Take a brochure." He waves at the giant stack on the table. Clint wonders when he straightened Steve's fan. "Here, let me give you a card."  
  
Phil works some impressive legerdemain with his wallet, but he's not so quick that Clint misses seeing "rton" on the card he hands over. He starts to protest, but now's not the time--and he realizes he's not actually upset. He reaches under the table and grabs two ring pops. If Tony's got an objection, he can lodge it with the "Kiss My Ass" department. "Also, we have candy." Fighting a goofy grin (a losing battle), Hat takes the red ring pop with a mumbled thanks. Clint waves the other one at Blue Hair. "How about you?"  
  
She laughs and shakes her head, waving her hands. "Graphic designer."  
  
"Friends and family candy," Bruce says, and she laughs harder and takes it.  
  
"Okay, thanks, guys."  
  
"Anytime," Phil says, warm and sincere, and Clint wants to crawl into his lap and pin him to the chair, never let him move again.  
  
Clint still doesn't entirely get it, and Pride will probably never be his "thing". But he watches the two young women walk away, Blue Hair crowing because her ring pop matches her hair, Hat tucking Clint's card into her pocket before reaching over to tangle their fingers together, and he thinks he understands why it matters.

**Author's Note:**

> My, how early the fruits are [tumbling](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com/) this year.


End file.
